


Something for the Pain (And Something for the Fear)

by StarksInTheNorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, The War for the Dawn, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarksInTheNorth/pseuds/StarksInTheNorth
Summary: After Harry Hardyng's death, Sansa finds comfort and support from Jon Snow.
Relationships: Harrold Hardyng/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Kudos: 76





	Something for the Pain (And Something for the Fear)

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from 2017.

Two weeks after Harrold Hardyng sets his quartered cloak around the shoulders of Sansa Stark, heir to Winterfell as far as the courts of southern nobles were concerned, Harrold Hardyng summons his very pregnant mistress, Saffron, and his little daughter Alys Stone to the Gates of the Moon.

Long ago Sansa gave up hopes of loving a knight from a song, but she finds herself happier than she expected with her husband. Aside from his past infidelities, Harry is either kind or mindless towards her. He dotes on the expecting mother and sweet Alys in the evening. But when night falls, he visits his wife's chamber, ever mindful of his need for a trueborn heir. Harry does not dishonor her before the court of the Vale and regulates Saffron and Alys take their meals at the lower tables when the great hall fills with feasts. He will never be a lover to write poems about his love for her or compose songs in her honor, and only duty will tie her favor to his tourney lance, but Harry will also not strip and beat her bloody before the court, paint her skin with plum-colored bruises, or use drunken violence to have his way with her.

Sansa contents herself with this marriage, to love the children her husband will give her, and accepts this as her lot in life.

She supports his claim to the weirwood throne when young Sweetrobin dies in his sleep and the Vale is thrown to chaos. Littlefinger stands accused of murder of the boy and his maester. When Harry sits at the head of the great hall and asks his wife for honesty, Sansa tells him everything she knows: the plot to poison Jon Arryn, crazed Aunt Lysa's untimely demise, the falsities forced upon vile Marillion, and Petyr Baelish's insistence on dosing Robert with sweetsleep after every shaking spell.

She offers comfort when Saffron dies in childbirth with Harry's first born son and holds both father and child through the night as they both cry. Saffron's son is a healthy boy with his father's look: soft blond hair, a chubby face with innocent blue eyes, and a giggle that could make a weirwood smile. When Harry cannot bare to look at his son, Sansa names him Cilantro in his mother's honor and finds a wet-nurse to care for him besides her own young son. Her husband recovers within the fortnight, though, and nightly sings Cilantro to sleep before he comes to her bed. From this and his delight to see Alys learn to walk, Sansa knows that Harry will love their children even if he bears only a gentle fondness for her.

She keeps his castle, warms his bed, and prays daily for a babe of her own to play with the bastards in the nursery and make Sansa's own heart whole with family. But after she bleeds again again, there is news from the North of Sansa's remaining family: Winterfell has been rescued by her brother, Jon Snow, and he claims lordship through Robb's will and the support of King Stannis Baratheon.

Her heart thrills to know there is blood that remains to her, yet Sansa has a duty t,o stand by her husband's side.

Thus, Sansa supports Harry when he rallies the Knights of the Vale to sail North, to see this brother and challenge his claim in her name.

Little left to challenge when they arrive in Winterfell, with Jon Stark focused solely on preparations for a war against creatures of ice and myth. Open armed, Jon welcomes Sansa and Harry to her childhood home with nary a consideration for why they arrive in the North with a force ten thousand strong.

Harry surprises Sansa with his wisdom, in accepting Jon as lord for now and turning to the war that approaches. Jon tasks Sansa with preparing the castle for a long siege and she orders excess grain from Littlefingr's former stores to feed the northern warriors and smallfolk. 

More surprising still is when Harry requests her favor to wear during the battles that come. He tucks her blue-grey scarf against his heart when he rides at the head of the column leading the Winged Knights and Knights of the Vale to the Battle of the Long Night. 

But most surprising is when Sansa cries real tears when her husband's cold, dented shield comes home to her.

* * *

Sansa accepts the offered shield from Uncle Brynden, surprised by how heavy it is in her hands. _The knights always make it look so easy._

Around them, the wind and snow whip through the bustling courtyard of Winterfell. The servants have been put to work in maintaining the castle for everyone, turning down beds, chopping firewood, cleaning weapons, preparing and serving their sparse meals, and minding children left behind by parents fighting on the frontlines. Nearby, the knights and soldiers train the children and women in simple defensive techniques for their protection in case the walls are breached. Some children sit besides a bonfire, dunking sticks in oil that can later be lit and thrown at wights from the battlements.

And in the middle of all the chaos, Sansa studies all that remains of Harrold Arryn.

Even though the shield is frosted over, the bright of all its painted colors shines through the glass-like layer. She long wondered if Harry meant to add her own lineage to it, or to their future children's arms. He so keenly showed his descent from the Lords Arryn, Hardyng, and Waynwood in his own sigil. _It would look too cluttered_ , she thinks, _with all his line with my own Whent, Tully, and Stark_.

She looks up to catch the Blackfish's observation of her inspection. Her mother's uncle had been there when Harry succumbed to his wounds and was the one to take up Harry's shield as his own so he could return it to Sansa. She sets the shield on the ground so she can wipe the tears from her eyes before they freeze there. "How did he die?"

"Lord Arryn died in the thick of the fighting. He took five wights with him, before one gouged his belly." Brynden Tully tells her, blue eyes deep-set in his head and face solemn. Sansa cannot help but release a bitter laugh as she wipes more frozen tears from her cheeks.

"Aye, for all the good that glory does his wife." She closes her eyes. "He's left me with two bastards of his blood. All that's left to me now that Littlefinger is dead and Jon Snow further north than even Bran."

That news had brought her much comfort, to hear her younger brother was alive. Even if he was beyond the wall, it meant she would not need to fight Jon for control of Winterfell as Stannis and Harry both had wished. There were too few Starks left to fight among themselves. _Too few wolves to make a pack_.

"My lady, are you sure you are not with child?" Brynden raises an eyebrow at her strange, silent behavior.

Sansa traces the outline of an Arryn falcon on Harry's shield before offering an answer. She has considered the idea of a babe swelling in her belly many times in recent months. Yet her body only lost the little fat it had as time went on. She, like all the denizens of Winterfell, eats only the small rations she received. As ruling Lady, she must set an example for her handmaids and all the rest. If she looks beneath her dress, Sansa can see the ribs along her stomach sticking out against her skin like the posts of a tent beneath the cloth.

"It's impossible, I fear, Uncle."

And yet, Sansa wonders. She hangs Harry's shield above her bed and thinks of their last night together, barely two months before. Her blood has not come since, but surely that was from the lack of nutrition?

Time continues on. That month bleeds into the next. The living, motherless infants grow strong despite the little food they have. Sansa throws herself into them, their care and comfort her single most goal outside of ruling Winterfell in Jon's stead. The only news from the northern North, a confirmation of a long ago rumor: that Jon rode a dragon into battle, seen by many to mean he was the son of Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen. A rumor confirmed by Bran's whispers in the godswood. It is another month before the brightest dawn since summer rises triumphantly from the horizon, a blush of red against the palest yellow-blue, and with the dawn comes the return of the last of their fighters.

* * *

On his arrival, Jon finds her in the crypts of Winterfell, looking over Lyanna's place next to their Uncle Brandon.

"Do you believe the rumors?" Sansa sets a hand on Lyanna's statue. Jon responds with a heavy silence, a darkness deep in his eyes. "They say she was very beautiful, with the Stark look. A willful wolf. Old Nan was telling me."

Above any other strange thing, their childhood caretaker had survived imprisonment in the Dreadfort and the cold of the long, barren winter. Her knowledge on old tales had proven instrumental during the dark times and provided key details about how to defeat the wights, ice spiders, and white walkers.

"I don't know what to believe. Daenerys thinks it's true, and what she says is really all that matters, seeing as she's the only living queen." Jon answers at last. He runs a hand through his thick dark hair, so like Ned Stark's. "Are you… are you alright? I never really spoke to Harry, but he seemed the fine sort."

Sansa grimaces. "I didn't love him, if that's what you mean, and there is so much else to grieve - but I do mourn him yet."

Silence reigns until she turns to Jon again. For the first time since Harry's shield returned, she feels tears in her eyes. "Are we truly the last?"

Jon grips her hands in his. "No, never. Bran is out there still, I hear from him often, and Davos Seaworth wrote me from White Harbor that he was Rickon, back safe from exile in Skagos. There were even reports from the Riverlands of a girl on a giant wolf leading a pack of hundreds - "

“You don’t think -” Her eyes go wide in amazement. She squeezes hard on Jon's fingers. "Arya?”

"We won't know, until after the thaws come stronger and spring makes passage safer, but there must be some truth to the tales." His grip intensifies, as does his gaze as his eyes meet hers. "We may not be whole as we once were, but the Starks are here, bastard branches and all. There is no chance of distant cousins in the Vale taking over."

"Jon - " Her voice cracks. "You aren't a bastard branch. If people do not believe that Robb's will is legitimate then I'll do it myself. You are a Stark, Jon."

"I wanted Winterfell until I knew what having it would mean," he confesses, eyebrows knotting together in distant memory. "I just wish our childhood had never ended."

"We'll create that safety and warmth again, you and I." Sansa promises. The shadows of their family's statues reflect off her face as she speaks, centuries of history adding weight to her words. "Until Bran comes, we shall rule in his name to raise Winterfell and the North to their former glory. There are already two children who will grow to fill these halls with laughter, and someday maybe you or Arya or the boys will marry and add other voices to their song."

Jon's face shows how stunned he feels at the changes from the Sansa of their youth.

"You mean to keep Harry's children here?"

"Yes." She swallows. "I lived life as a Stone in a court ruled by a false father who doted on me and still found the place oppressive. I will not let these poor children suffer that fate. They deserve better than to be judged for their father's indiscretions."

"That's good of you, Sansa." Jon says, and the wall between them falls a little more.

Slowly, the world rebuilds. It terrifies her, more so even than Old Nan's stories coming to life. The changes are not quick in coming, but there is still something that changes in the ways people speak to one another, a hope Sansa has not felt round her since the years before she ever met Prince Joffrey Baratheon and went south. But still, these changes are good. It is not a week after Jon's arrival that Bran sends his last message through the trees, promising that he is beginning to make his way home. The snow melts some and there is talk of growing an orchard of apples in the remnants of a battlefield outside the wintertown's walls. There is joy now, more than has filled these halls in years.

And so it is a great tumult when Sansa wakes one morning and releases the contents of her stomach into the basin she uses to clean her face. She heaves her dinner up, sweat patting her hair against her forehead. Sansa clutches her stomach at the pain, not sure anything at all will stay down.

Her suspicions are confirmed when her handmaiden brings her a tray of lemon cakes and the smell makes Sansa run for her wash basin.

Jon finds her sitting in the broken tower, arms round her middle. In his hands, he carries two steaming mugs of a strongly scented tea. There is a touch of mint and rosemary in the air, and something else, but none of the smells make Sansa want to go running and so she sips the hot beverage down gladly.

"I thought you might need something for the pain." He says as he slides down the bare wall to sit down next to her on the dusty floor. Sansa finds herself leaning against Jon, finds comfort in the warmth of a strong body next to hers. This is not something she thought she would miss, when Harry left and stayed away for good. "A babe, then?"

"I never thought to do this alone." Her words are whispers, soft as snow falling. "Harry was not perfect, but he was a good father."

Jon strokes her shoulder gently. There is tranquility in his simple embrace. His other arm comes round his body to hold her hand over her belly. "We can find a maester to make the moon tea, if you don't want - "

"I want this child." She does not mean to bite, but it seems there is still some wolf left in Sansa. "I don't know if I shall have a chance for more of mine own blood, and I always dreamed of a boy named Robb, sometimes even a girl like Arya…"

Sansa does not cry, for these are happy tidings despite the pain and fear that may come with them. She lets words fall, slowly and quiet against Jon's chest, of the few dreams she kept even through her torture in Joffrey's court and her months in exile in the Vale. There will be light and joy and laughter in Winterfell again, and this babe does not hinder her dedication to that goal. In fact, it enhances it. Her child will have the full childhood she had, and more. They will not send it away, it will not go south unless that is its own wish when it fully understands the world.

Some days, her morning pangs leave her abed for hours and others she barely notices the bulge quickly growing on her stomach. Rickon comes with Ser Davos, the boy as wild as a wolf. Arya arrives, and soon after her the dragon queen comes for a visit to see how the North fairs in the reconstruction. She is a kind, just woman, equally at ease with either Stark sister. Daenerys helps to mend the gaps between them. And there is always Jon, watching after her and bringing her calming teas when she needs them, and his ear when she wants it. He tells her of the wall and the war, and together they rebuild the dream of Winterfell. Finally, on the eave of her confinement, Bran and his companions make it back to Winterfell. Their family is whole, the pack reforms.

Finally, when the babe does come, it is Arya and Jon who hold her hands while she pushes life into the world. The child has nothing of her father, and not much of her mother. She has Sansa's cheekbone's, yes, and Harry's ears, but her coloring is so much like Arya's that Bran dares to jape which sister it was that gave birth. Their family gathered round, with Alys clamoring to see her sister, Sansa declares the name of her child, "Lyanna. Our little Lady Lya."

Jon beams at her, and it is the least she can do for all the support he has given her.

Even as Bran rules Winterfell as its true lord, he relies on his cousin and sisters for advice in all things. Sansa, her daughter and Lyanna's siblings always on her hip or tugging on her dress, is nearly always with Jon. They have a vision for the future of the castle and together they enact it.

When the stonemasons finally bring a statue of Eddard Stark to place upon his tomb, Jon picks her up and spins her in his delight. His cheeks redden and he backs away, but Sansa knows then there is more at play. So as they wander the wolfswood after visiting their lost loved ones, she presses a tender kiss upon his cheek, and then a harder one upon his lips. It is still delicate, an experiment in the greatest sense, but Jon pulls her up against him and holds her tight to his chest.

The future comes, a repeat of what they once yearned for. There is a happiness Sansa never thought to expect to find again, even if it is bittersweet. Children grow, and more follow. First theirs, then Bran's, and even Arya's too. There is something for them all to share in the world after and they conquer the darkness together, hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> You can hit me up at [tumblr](https://www.starksinthenorth.tumblr.com) for more Jonsa fun.


End file.
